The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

UP is the loser

Uttar Pradesh is headed for a spell of President's rule. Even if a combination of two of the three larger parties close ranks and present the required magic figure of 203 to Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri, the arrangement is not likely to last long. It does not require knowledge of the complex political equations in UP to understand that the largest group, namely the Samajwadi Party, can neither extend nor expect support from the Bharatiya Janata Party that represents the second largest group of legislators. The Bahujan Samaj Party has emerged as the third largest group. Both the BSP and the SP share the same Dalit platform and yet after the murderous assault on Ms Mayawati at the State Guest House in Lucknow, when Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav was Chief Minister, it is inconceivable that either of the two leaders would try and rise above their ego and give UP a fairly stable government. The 143 seats of the SP and its minor allies plus the 98 that the BSP has bagged would give the pro-Dalit combination a comfortable majority. But who cares? Not Ms Mayawati nor Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav nor any other leader in UP. The BSP has in the past done political business with the BJP. But this time Ms Mayawati would demand a price that the BJP may be unwilling to pay. The BJP leadership may persuade Caretaker Chief Minister Rajnath Singh to let Ms Mayawati take over the reigns of heading a coalition government from him. But she has been bitten once, and rather badly, by Mr Kesrinath Tripathi of the BJP as the Speaker. However, for the BJP to let her have a say in the appointment of the Speaker would amount to committing political harakiri.

The electorate has played a cruel joke. All the leading players would be better off sitting in the Opposition. But an Opposition without a ruling party or a combination of parties is not possible. The leaders of the main parties have already started playing the game of blaming every other party except their own for the fractured verdict. During the lacklustre campaign not a single party raised issues that concern the general well-being of the people. The voters have struck back, and with a vengeance. Unless the BJP, the BSP and the SP, and even the Congress, decide to stop playing the caste and communal cards for garnering votes, the electorate would continue to give them the kind of treatment they have received this time. It is amazing, but true, that after Independence only Gobind Ballabh Pant and Sampurnanand have completed full terms as Chief Minister. The almost uninterrupted spell of political instability after Sampurnanand's exit in the early sixties has left deep scars of neglect. UP is now streets ahead of Bihar as the most corrupt state. It is also the most backward as well. A well-maintained network of roads is a reliable indicator of the state of health of any territory. Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are fairly developed states because of the attention they have paid to the development of roads. They are also among the more prosperous states because of the wise investments they have made in the information technology sector. UP has yet to wake up to the economic benefits of this 21st century tool for rapid progress. Even if Mr Rajnath Singh or Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav or Ms Mayawati are able to form the next government, they would be too busy playing the politics of survival to pay attention to even the bread and butter issues of the people.

OPINION

RUN-UP TO THE BUDGET
Time for a fresh beginning in Punjab
Issues for revival of the economy
Sucha Singh Gill

The last two decades have been a saga of slide-down of Punjab’s development process. From the position of a fastest growing state it has joined the category of low-growing states. The Indian economy crossed the jinxed rate of 3.5 per cent (the Hindu rate of growth, to use Prof Raj Krishna’s expression) per annum to 5.5 per cent in the 1980s and more than 6 per cent in the 1990s. But Punjab’s annual growth rate has slipped down from 5.5 per cent in the 1980s to 4.6 per cent during the 1990s.

The slow-down in Punjab’s economic dynamism is reflected from stagnating agriculture with no takers for its produce, crumbling medium units and dying small-scale units, general recession in business and the service sector, mounting unemployment among educated youth, burgeoning under-employment among cultivators majority of whom are fast becoming non-viable. This is accompanied by severe educational crisis with near collapse of rural education, ailing higher education and the non-functioning public health care system. The power sector of the state in the institution of the Punjab State Electricity Board is about to breathe its last. Unless corrective measures are taken in the right earnest, the development process is likely to drift further.

In order to stem the rot a beginning has to be made from the point where it can be most appropriate. This beginning has to be from the policy initiative of the state government. There is no non-governmental/private institution to play such a role. If things are left to market forces, the crisis in the economy would deepen further. Market forces favour the most productive, dynamic and profitable enterprises and sub-sectors. Market would neither revive the crisis-ridden activities nor generate employment in the era of jobless growth. This role has to be played by an agency which functions from a social perspective rather than from that of profitability. This, therefore, remains the task of the government in the state. This had also been promised by the major political parties in the battle royal at the hustings.

A question which needs the attention of all concerned is that how far is the government capable of playing the expected role? At the present level of state of affairs in Punjab, the government has absolutely no capability to play this role. The successive political parties in the state have contributed in equal measure to cripple the capability of the government. The ruling parties have run the government with the perspective that it has to withdraw from its economic and social role and work to destroy the state capability to play a constructive role worth the name. Any exercise to revive the economy, therefore, has to start from the revival of the capability of the government to play an effective role in the economy of the state.

The Government of Punjab can be aptly described as fund starved surviving each year with larger and larger market borrowings. The debt burden of the state has been progressing very fast. It stood at Rs 24,000 crore in 1999-2000 and reached Rs 28,000 crore in 2001-2002. Not only is the government under heavy debt, its corporations are equally involved in a debt trap. These corporations have been made to bail out the prodigality of populism practised by governments. The debt burden of the state corporations is reported to be Rs 6,500 crore. At present there is an annual gap of Rs 3000 crore between receipts and expenditure on revenue account. In addition to this, already, the state government has sold off public property worth several crores of rupees to meet its day-to-day requirements. Instead of using the receipts from the sale of public property to retire mounting public debt, the government has found it convenient to finance its current requirements.

There is not much left now for the government to sell to meet its financial requirements. Therefore, the only way to meet government expenditure and its debt obligations is to think seriously about the business of tax collection. There is a massive tax evasion in the state, largely in connivance with the ruling party and public servants. No outside agency (such as the World Bank, the NIPFP or retired officials of the IMF) is required to know it. Politicians and civil servants are well aware of it.

The starting point for the revival of the Punjab economy has to be the will to do it. This has to be in the form of the will and commitment of the party in power. If the party running the affairs of the state displays a commitment to revive the economy, the ways and means can be evolved to do so. In the absence of such a commitment, rhetoric of the leaders can be heard with actions contrary to it. Punjab has already seen squandering of several hundred crores of rupees on Sangat Darshan Programmes as a rhetoric while not even a single meeting of Punjab State Planning Board was held to deliberate a development strategy by the political leadership during the last five years for reasons best known to them.

As a measure of political will and commitment to revive the Punjab economy, the orientation of the administration need immediate change from law and order to development. As a first step, more than 50 per cent of the public expenditure should be earmarked for development activities. Under no circumstances should revenue be shifted from capital account to a current account. Whenever there is need to increase current account/non-Plan expenditure, it must be financed through additional tax revenue. There is an ample scope for increasing tax revenue in the state. If tax collection is made effective, the state budget can be converted from a deficit to surplus one on revenue account. For illustration, one can mention that more than 1500 buses and 10,000 taxis are reportedly plying illegally. They are neither paying passenger tax nor other tax dues. Several thousand marriage places, private clinics and nursing homes remain untaxed. This is in addition to the sales tax of several thousand crores being evaded by the business community.

Another measure of commitment to the revival of the economy could be that no addition to the present level of debt is made in the coming years. It implies that the entire spending, including debt servicing, would be financed out of tax and non-tax revenue of the state.

An important task has to be the revival of institutions so that they function effectively, transparently, efficiently and honestly. The non-governance has been widespread at various levels of the administration. This is reflected in corruption in revenue collection and the departments having public dealings. Pilferage of public funds from development works and their squandering with the motive to benefit the powers that be are also part of the same tendency. The sale of public property to influential persons at throw away prices is a very crude example of this tendency.

The state which used to be a model of governance in development and the public delivery of services, particularly health and education, has touched a very low level. Public service has been transformed into self/private service at public cost. Politics and service in the administration have been converted into very lucrative professions with very little investment. Appointments, postings and transfers are reported to be on sale/premium. Without improving governance, the development process can not be revived.

Improvement in the financial health of the state and effective governance are the two sides of the same coin. If this is accomplished, the state can embark afresh on the path of development. This would require careful considerations in critical areas of state intervention, people’s involvement in the identifications of their problems and priorities, implementation of development programmes and initiation of positive policy signals for an enhanced role of a responsive entrepreneur in the market-dominated sectors.

In this context, three institutions can play a very important role. One, the Punjab State Planning Board can be entrusted with the role of an economic think tank under some eminent economist as Deputy Chairman in close coordination with the Chief Minister as the Chairman. This board can be the churning centre for various development ideas and can determine investment priorities, areas of critical state interventions, activities for responsive entrepreneurs from the private sector and the level of people’s participation in planning and implementation of development programmes. At the same time it can evolve a system of transparent evaluation of different levels of development activities and the agencies involved (including the administration) in it to check the pilferage of funds and ensure timely completion of projects in efficient ways.

Two, the decentralisation under 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution is overdue in the state. The panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) and the municipal corporations/committees respectively in rural and urban areas need to be involved in the development activities within their respective domains. For this purpose they need to be given assured financial resources, the power to take decisions and the authority to implement them. The state government already has reports of the two state fiscal commissions in its hands as a necessary input. These institutions would play a useful role if bureaucratic and political interference is minimised through statutory safeguards. They should not be made as battle grounds for completing political parties. They are to be allowed to function as people’s development institutions at the grassroots level. They have the potentials to make people as partners in development.

Third, farmers’ organisations have potentials to mobilise peasantry to transform agriculture in the desired direction. Unlike the government departments, they have credibility among the farmers. The farmers listen and follow their leadership on various issues. A mechanism needs to be evolved to involve farmers’ organisations in restructuring agriculture in view of the special nature of its problems.

Besides, changing the orientation of the state administration from law and order to development, the process of public capital formation has to be strengthened. But this alone would not do. The process of technological change and innovation has to be started on a scale higher than it was done in the early 1960s. For this R&D both in agriculture and agri-business has to be put on high priority. This would require making institutions of higher education such as universities and research institutes to function effectively and perform by generating innovations centred in the state. At the same time, capability has to be generated among the large sections of the population of the state to apply and absorb the innovations both in agriculture and industry produced within and outside Punjab. This would demand that the state achieves 100 per cent literacy among the adults and is able to keep all the children of school-going age within the schools with a very little dropout rate.

Within the next 20- years if the state is to perform, it must achieve 10-12 as the average year of schooling for the adult population to be on a par with Asian Tigers. Another related aspect is high priority to reviving public health in the state to improve the general health of people and correct the gender imbalance created by widespread female foeticide through unregulated sex-determination clinics and because of social bias against the females. The privatisation of health care and commercialisation of education (including higher education) as yet need to be avoided due to very fragile human development indicators in the state.

These tasks can be performed and must be performed in Punjab to avoid further deceleration in the economy. The people of the state are enterprising and hard-working and the economic base of the Punjab is still strong to reverse a further slide-down. We have already wasted a decade any further delay would push Punjab to join the ranks of perpetually low-performing states like UP, Bihar, and Orissa.

The writer is a professor of economics at Punjabi University, Patiala.

REALPOLITIK

Meaning of Dalit upsurge
P. Raman

A rather unnoticed aspect of the Assembly election has been the clear signals it sent about the increasing Dalit asserting. Many visiting scribes had sensed it but perhaps their own mental block and intellectual distance had miserably failed them. Apparently, the new boldness has made Mayawati’s task easier. In small towns and bastis, Dalit youth seemed to enjoy upper caste candidates taking directives from the Dalit bosses.

Maybe the new upsurge is confined to the socially backward Gangetic belt. But considering the vast Dalit population spread over the interior India, this may be a drop in the ocean. Yet the signals are loud and clear. A new generation of Dalit youth exposed to the life in towns and cities has emerged on the scene. It is they — some in jeans and T-shirts — who are pioneering the new challenge. Unlike the senior Dalit officer, these boys seem to feel not so ashamed to forget their past and snap the ties with their bastis.

The new assertion has been accompanied by a long churning process. Each more by the Dalit activists encouraged new sections to seek their own remedies. Apart from the Dalit writers, at least four different kinds of protest movements have set forth their programmes. Udit Raj launched his conversion movement just there months ago. Last month, a widely representative conclave of Dalit intellectuals came up with their Bhopal declaration. Also, unreported by the media, there has been a spurt in the local level Dalit samitis. Some activists even conduct their own jagrans — as an exclusivist display.

Incidentally, Udit Raj’s conversion campaign seems to be having a wider impact on the Dalit psyche than the much more exhaustive Bhopal declaration. This is primarily due to emotional factors. The wide publicity the mass conversion procedures received had reached the youths who hotly debated it at street corners. Generally, the Dalits detest conversion as falling for inducements. But conversion to Buddism is voluntary, and there is hardly any stigma attached to it. With a little effort and organisational resources — which Udit Raj lacks — it could be turned into a major movement.

The RSS parivar’s objections and the intimidation and obstructions put by the NDA government had only made it more controversial. It seems to have further alienated even the few Dalit youths who had once enjoyed the honour of rubbing shoulders with others during the Ayodhya stir. The parivar’s aggressive reaction to Udit Raj’s move — like the NDA government’s refusal of the Ram Lila maidan for the function and forcefully stopping vehicles on the border to prevent crowds arriving at the function on November 4 — has been evidence enough of the potential danger it sees in mass Dalit conversion.

The BJP fears are based on two factors. First, it thought that if such conversions are allowed even to an Indian religion — it differentiates between Hindu sects like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism and semetic religions like Islam and Christianity — it would open floodgates for a massive exodus. The foreign Buddhist links could pump in resources. Second, once out, these sections will also get out of the Hindutva vote-bank. Enthusiasm of the surging crowds at the two subsequent conversion functions gave credence to the BJP fears.

The 21-point Bhopal declaration has been a product of intensive discussions at a two-day national conference. The meeting has conceded that the conversion moves marked an expression of protest and emotional liberation. But it is not going to be a solution to the Dalit woes. It also disfavoured too much reliance on job quota at a time when the government is going ahead with massive flab cutting.

Therefore, it wanted programme for affirmative action by the private and corporate sectors. Among the other points in the declaration are provision of quality education to the Dalits, land to every Dalit family and training and encouragement to enable them run small industries. There should also be provision for awarding work contract to Dalits.

Since building of the necessary talent is going to be a long process, to start with the Dalits should be given representation in all public, semi-public and private institutions. While the declaration suggested a soft programme, the Naxalite movement in the Gangetic belt tries to achieve economic justice by force. Their relentless fight for land and human rights sustained the movement for so long.

Mayawati has been the biggest beneficiary of this increasing Dalit awareness. Her improved showing may have been partly due to the cooption of the upper castes into her party. But the emerging Dalit generation too has played a major role in her success in the predominantly Dalit areas. In the long run, however, this is going to be a double-edged weapon for her. The emerging generation is not going to just remain contend with renaming districts or putting up statues and parks.

The Dalit Chief Minister will have to listen to the aspirations of the Dalit youth. There will be pressure from the Dalit ranks to take the points raised in the Bhopal declaration. Kanshi Ram’s Dalit movement too had begun essentially as a social protest. The mainstay of his “DS-4” has been the lowly government employees. This was when the Congress still had a tight hold on the Dalit vote-bank. The way Kanshi Ram has organised colourful shows had led to the allegation of foreign help to him to weaken Indira Gandhi’s hold on what was then called Harijans.

After the formation of the BSP, Kanshi Ram took the position that all the Dalit problems would get solved the movement they get to power. He ridiculed the “sarkari” charity and asked his men to spurn pittances like land. But after Mayawati lost power for the second time, she was at pains to explain her inability to do anything substantial for the Dalit uplift. Then she could get away by putting all the blames on her BJP ally.

Of late she has been conceding that Dalits had been the worst victims of the reform measures like privatisation and globalisation. Despite the BSP’s track record of rank political opportunism and lack of commitment even to the Dalit cause, the contribution it had made to make the Dalits stand up to the upper caste threats cannot be ignored. Kanshi Ram and Mayawati had stood by them whenever the basti came under threat. Earlier it was common for the upper caste goons to prevent them from voting under sheer physical threat.

Several other factors had contributed to the BSP’s growth. Electoral politics attracted ticket aspirants and position-seekers to it in large numbers. Social and non-political movements do not enjoy such advantage. Mayawati’s has been the right combination of the Dalit power and contemporary deideologised politics patterned on one-boss leadership. She structured her party on the model set by other single-leader outfits.

The new urge for Dalit identity has been fanned both by increasing awareness due to wider exposures and the growing trend of deliberately nursing communal and castebased vote banks. Under such ghetto politics, the Dalits are also forced to assert their chance, will have to be more responsive to the expectations raised by the Udit Raj movement, the Bhopal intellectuals and parallel moves by various other Dalit outfits.

TRENDS & POINTERS

British couples want ‘designer babies’

Six more British couples plan to apply for permission to have a “designer baby’’ to save a sibling’s life.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority — Britain’s fertility watchdog — insisted that it had not opened the floodgates after Raj and Shahana Hashmi got the go-ahead for embryo selection last Friday.

The couple at the centre of the medical row say they are not “playing God’’ by creating a child to save the life of their terminally ill, three-year-old son.

Under the treatment agreed by the HFEA, embryos created through the Hashmis’ IVF treatment will be screened to ensure they are the same tissue type as Zain before being put back in the womb.

When the baby is born, blood from its umbilical cord will be used to try and cure the three-year-old.

The process was first used in the case of Molly Nash from Colorado in the USA, where cord blood from her brother Adam was transplanted into the little girl, who is said to have made a near perfect recovery.

Opponents have condemned the British ruling saying it opens the doors to couples wanting “designer babies’’ with a shopping list of characteristics. Reuters

Group living can boost your memory

A new research on birds has suggested that those living in large groups have more new neurons and probably a better memory than those living alone. Combined with the evidence that adult humans also produce new neurons in their brains, these results raise the possibility that social interaction could help them survive too, and perhaps that would even boost our memories.

How the brain stores long-term memory is a mystery, but some researchers think it involves permanent changes in the gene expression of brain cells. So animals like songbirds that have small brains and relatively long lifespans would run out of neural “space” to store new memories if they didn’t grow a constant supply of new cells. Songbirds do grow new neurons, though most of these die within three to five weeks and so can’t store memories for long. But those that survive may provide space for new long-term memories.

Researchers have noticed before that social animals such as elephants tend to have better memories than loners. But no one had actually seen a change in the survival of neurons caused solely by the number of companions. ANI

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

All commit mistakes,

Except the Lord and the Master.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, M-1, Sri Rag, Page 61

Eternal is the Lord;

Eternal is the Master;

Eternal is the True Wisdom.

He is the Lord of Gods;

He is the Lord of men;

He is the helper of the helpless;

He looks after those

who have no support.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, M-1, Ramkali, page 934

The Master was kind to me;

He showed me the land of death.

He showed me the underworld.

He showed me the subtle world.

He is Brahma;

He is unborn;

He is;

He shall be.

He is found in the heart.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, M-1, Sorath, page 597

The perfect Master gives a single glance,

And thereby redeems the disciple.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 413

There is no place of pilgrimage equal to a Master;

For a true Master is the Lord himself.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 437

Without the Master there is no release;

He is an old, old lover of the Lord.

By his grace he grants release,

And forgives the sinner.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Maru, page 1027

The Master is the boatman,

And the boat of the shabad takes us across to land,

where there is no wind or fire,

Nor water nor any form.

— Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Maru page 1009